Eloquent | Setting column value on insert - laravel

Question

So currently, I have a table which is for business locations in order to seperate the locations from the actual businesses table.
In this table, I want to store the longitude and latitude and obviously I can't get the user to input that without requiring them to do manual work which I really want to avoid.
So I wrote a class in order to get the longitude and latitude ready for entry to the database.
I've read online about doing setLongitudeAttribute() function within the model but I'm basing it off of the whole address which they are entering so I need to capture the whole of the request and then input it in myself.
I understand I can do this in the controller and do a custom insert but I didn't know if it was possible to keep it all contained within the model.
So essentially to break it down.
User inputs the full address including all address lines and postal/zip code.
Eloquent model captures this data.
Converts the address to long and lat
Model then handles the request in order to set the longitude and latitude based on the address.
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use App\Http\Calls\LongitudeLatitude;
class BusinessLocation extends Model
{
/**
* #var array
*/
protected $fillable = [
'business_id',
'address_line_1',
'address_line_2',
'address_line_3',
'address_line_4',
'postcode',
'longitude',
'latitude'
];
/**
* #var string
*/
protected $address;
protected function setAddressLine1Attribute($value)
{
$this->address .= $value . '+';
$this->attributes['address_line_1'] = $value;
}
protected function setAddressLine2Attribute($value)
{
$this->address .= $value . '+';
$this->attributes['address_line_2'] = $value;
}
protected function setAddressLine3Attribute($value)
{
$this->address .= $value . '+';
$this->attributes['address_line_3'] = $value;
}
protected function setAddress4Attribute($value)
{
$this->address .= $value . '+';
$this->attributes['address_line_4'] = $value;
}
protected function setPostcodeAttribute($value)
{
$this->address .= $value;
$this->attributes['postcode'] = $value;
$this->setCoordinates();
}
protected function setCoordinates()
{
$long_lat = new LongitudeLatitude();
$coords = $long_lat->get($this->address);
$this->attributes['longitude'] = $coords['longitude'];
$this->attributes['latitude'] = $coords['latitude'];
}

Answer 1

First of all, and as you correctly mention, it doesn't look a good practice to write this logic in the model, but in the controller.
If I were you, I would leave the model logic to the model, and the rest to the controller and the other objects required to "transform" the input. This could even be done from the client with some javascript library if you will, sending just the lat and long to the server (your choice).
If you still want to create a method / setter in the model, I would recommend you to get some inspiration in any consolidated library, and the more official, the best, as for example: Laravel Cashier (https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/billing), which provides extra behaviours to the model, in a separate logic unit.
If you want to follow Laravel Cashier approach, it uses a trait to apply the behaviour:
https://github.com/laravel/cashier/blob/7.0/src/Billable.php
It uses the official stripe package (it could be, in your case, the class you wrote, or any other such as Google Maps SDK) as well as other helper and data objects, which would make your model lighter in memory and make another objects responsible of the additional logic (easier to test and maintain), while it would also embed the behaviours in your model.
About your code...
You can not guarantee that the setters are executed in the order you want (or you shouldn't trust it will always do), so, in case you want to continue with the code you already have, I would suggest to move $this->setCoordinates(); to somewhere else, for example an event observer such as creating, updating and saving:
https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/eloquent#events
And also evaluate the address every time you call it, as follows:
public function setCoordinates()
{
$address = $this->attributes['address_line_1'] . '+' .
$this->attributes['address_line_2'] . '+' .
$this->attributes['address_line_3'] . '+' .
$this->attributes['address_line_4'] . '+' .
$this->attributes['postcode'];
$long_lat = new LongitudeLatitude();
$coords = $long_lat->get($address);
$this->attributes['longitude'] = $coords['longitude'];
$this->attributes['latitude'] = $coords['latitude'];
}
Notice that the method is public, so you can call it from the event observer.
There are other business logic factors to consider:
- Do you want to give the possibility to fill manually the coordinates? if not, you should remove them from the $fillable array.
- Do you really need to evaluate the coordinates every time you update any of the address fields? Then you may want to have a status property to verify if the coordinates are pristine (in address fields setters set pristine as false, in coordinates getters check if the value is null or if it's not pristine, and if so, set the coordinates again).